Suicide blast near Rawalpindi Imambargah

A powerful blast outside an Imambargah situated in Gracey Lines area killed three people including two policemen and left 14 injured.

According to DawnNews, policemen spotted a suspicious looking individual on a motorcycle in the parking lot of the Imambargah. The attacker blew himself up when the policemen tried to tackle him.

As a result three people including a SHO lost their lives.

The bodies were moved to Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital.

“We have three bodies and 14 wounded people at our hospital,” Asif Qadir Mir, chief of the local government hospital, told AFP.

Majlis-i-Wahadat-Muslameen (MWM), Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafaria condemned the attack and said that the government has failed to curb sectarian violence in the country.

There has been a rise in sectarian violence in Pakistan after several deadly clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups near Islamabad in November.

Allama Nasir Abbas a Shia cleric was killed late Sunday in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, after addressing a religious gathering.

On November 19, gunmen killed a senior Shia university director along with his driver in Lahore, while another Shia leader and his guard were killed in Karachi in early December.

Three days later, Shamsur Rehman Muawiya, chief of the Sunni organisation Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jammat for Punjab province, was killed in Lahore.

Pakistan is rife with sectarian clashes, with Sunni militant groups linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban often attacking gatherings by Shia’s, who constitute some 20 per cent of the country’s population.